Dell Inspiron 24 7000-Series All-in-One Review

First impressions of the Dell Inspiron 24 7000 are good. The design is fairly understated but stylish. Unlike most All-in-Ones, the components reside in the base of the computer rather than the screen itself. This makes it more practical in use, with all the ports easily accessible.

It comes in various configurations, but the model I’m looking at here has the following specification:

It’s a very decent spec which should be able to handle most tasks, except playing any modern games.

Setup

Setup of the machine is straightforward with no assembly required. Just plug into the mains and switch on, although you do need to locate and insert the USB wireless dongle for the keyboard and mouse into one of the USB 2 ports around the back. The dongle is easy to miss, don’t assume like I did that the keyboard and mouse are Bluetooth!

There wasn’t too much junkware to clear off which was a nice surprise. I uninstalled McAfee and a Dropbox trial and disabled OneDrive and was good to go. Dell does later prompt you to download and install additional software, but I gracefully declined.

Computers still aren’t coming with the Windows 10 anniversary update at the time of writing this article (almost 6 months after its release), and this machine is no exception which is slightly inconvenient, since a significant update will decide to install itself just when you’re beginning to enjoy your new computer.

Features

Adjusting articulating stand

The 23.8″ 1920 x 1080 resolution touchscreen looks good, with decent viewing angles, as you’d expect from Dell. But what makes this machine stand out is that this screen is fully articulated, so you can adjust it to lay completely flat like a giant tablet. It’s far more natural to use a touchscreen flat like this; poking at the screen when vertical has always felt awkward to me.

The adjustment of the screen is smooth if a little stiff, but feels sturdy.

Using the 3D webcam to create a 3D scan of my face

The screen has a 3D Intel Realsense webcam built in, which is able to perceive depth. I didn’t have enough time with this computer to really understand if this had any practical uses, but I did try the pre-installed 3DMe program. This allows you to scan your face using the 3D camera and then place it onto a variety of models and even send it off to be printed.

It worked pretty well, as you can see in the video at the top of the article, and that was without particularly good lighting.

The speaker is built into the base and produced better sound than I’ve come to expect from All-in-Ones. The base also has some very good connectivity with 6 USB ports including 4 fast USB 3.0 ports, an SD card slot, a gigabit Ethernet port, and both HDMI in and out ports. There is also the DC-in port which connects via an external 130W laptop style charger.

Having both HDMI in and out ports makes the screen very versatile. You can add another display via the out port, or you could plug in your Sky box or a Roku streaming player for instance, via the in port and use the Dell as TV.

The wireless keyboard and mouse don’t feel as premium as the machine itself which is a shame, but it’s easy to upgrade if it bothers you.

Performance

The computer has a very decent spec, but the 5400RPM laptop hard drive does slow it down slightly. It is a Hybrid drive which means it’s a conventional 1TB spinning disc, but has a fast 32GB SSD cache. The drive should adapt to how you use the computer and ensure software used often is cached on the faster SSD. But I’d still much prefer an albeit smaller SSD, and then plug in a fast USB 3.0 external hard drive as required.

Still, the quad core Core i5 processor and very generous 12GB of memory make the machine very capable for home computing tasks and many business tasks, even some video editing if that’s your thing.

Conclusions

All-in-Ones are still popular, with the Apple iMac the one to beat. This computer comes in a fair bit cheaper than an equivalent iMac, and with additional features like the fully articulated touchscreen, 3D camera and the excellent array of ports it’s good value, at least compared the the iMac. It also wouldn’t look out of place in the front room, and could double up as a TV if needed.

Pros

Stylish, sturdy build

Generous selection of ports, easily accessible

Good quality screen and decent sound

Articulating screen that can lay completely flat

HDMI in and out ports

Limited amount of junkware pre-installed. (Although Dell does prompt you to download some later on!)

Cons

Hard drive holds performance back slightly (versus an SSD or even a 7200RPM desktop drive)

Wireless keyboard and mouse could be more premium, in line with the machine itself

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Gidon’s obsession with technology began at an early age with a BBC B Micro computer. After working for 12 years at British Telecom travelling around the world as a technology researcher he opened a technology retail store in Tavistock in Devon, selling the latest tech and offering IT services to residential and business customers. Read More…

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